We all know that without customers there is no business.
You can have the most beautiful product in the world, have invented the coolest new bit of technology or written the best book ever woven from a combination of 26 letters but if no one will pay you for it, you don’t have a business.
So who is the customer that will see the value in what you do and have the faith to spend their money on it?
The answer is never, EVER, everyone! It just isn’t, okay.
If someone says ‘everyone is their customer’ this is the sensible reaction…
There are 9 billion people on the planet, they are not all going to be your customer.
As an author, I can start to narrow down my readers with four immediately obvious factors:
- Not everyone is able to read
- Not everyone is able to read English
- Not everyone reads for pleasure
- Not everyone reads in my genre
Already, just getting the obvious things out of the way, I can start to build up a picture of who will be the type of person to buy my Sheridan and Blake books.
You will never please all the people all the time. That, I’m afraid is just life.
It seems counter-intuitive to people new to business; you don’t want to restrict yourself, you need customers and you don’t really care who they are as long as they give you money.
That’s fine… to a point, but is not sustainable long term.
Soon you’ll find yourself losing focus and motivation. You’ll be pulled in thousands of directions or you’ll be so bland people will just stop noticing you as soon as the novelty of you being shiny and new wears off.
Picture this: Have you ever been into a pub and it’s got a funny atmosphere?
It’s probably because no one quite fits in there. By trying to cater to everyone you end up with nothing for anyone.
People walking in will ask themselves: Is this a boozer or a wine bar? A restaurant or a pub? A night club or a cafe? A creche or an office? It’s all and none of these things so they’ll go somewhere else instead.
My writers brain views my customers as characters in my story. Once I know their story, I can write them into mine.
